Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

allowing the wind- driven rain to wet his pajamas and

glue them to his skin.

He saw me just about the time I saw him, and

he stepped into my room without saying a word. We

clung together, me crying and him trying hard not to. I

wanted him to go, even as I held hard to him and cried

on his shoulder. "Why, Cathy, why all the tears?" he

asked as I sobbed on and on.

"Chris," I asked when I could, "you don't still

love her, do you?"

He hesitated before he answered. That made

anger simmer my blood into a rolling boil. "You do!" I

cried. "How can you after what she did to Cory and to

Carrie? Chris, what's wrong with you that you can go

on loving when you should hate as I do?"

Still he didn't say anything. And his very silence

gave me the answer. He went on loving her because he

had to if he were to go on loving me. Every time he

looked in my face he saw her and what she'd been like

in her early youth. Chris was just like Daddy, who had

been just as vulnerable to the kind of beauty I had. But

it was only a surface resemblance. I wasn't weak! I

wasn't without abilities! I could have thought of one

thousand ways to earn a living, rather than lock my

four children in a miserable room and leave them in

care of an evil old woman who wanted to see them

suffer for sins that weren't even theirs!

While I thought my vengeful thoughts and made

my plans to ruin her life when I could, Chris was

tenderly kissing me. I hadn't even noticed. "Stop!" I